View from the Fringe Newsletter of the New England Rug Society

Vol. 19 No. 4 April 2012 www.ne-rugsociety.org

April 20 Meeting: Collector Series, Honoring Alan Varteresian

April Meeting Details

Date: Friday, April 20 Time: 7:00 p.m. reception, wine and cheese 8:00 p.m. presentation and exhibition

Place: Grogan & Company, 22 Harris St., Dedham, MA http://www.groganco.com

From Boston: Take Mass Pike (Rt. 90) west to Rt. 128/95 south. Take exit 17 (Needham-Rt. 135). Go east on Rt. 135 (High Street) approximately two miles into Dedham Center. At the light, take a left onto Washington Street. Harris Street is one block down on the right.

From west of Boston: Take Mass Pike (Rt. 90) east to Rt. 128/95 south and proceed as above.

From the north: Take Rt. 93 south to Rt. 128/95 south and proceed as above.

From the south: Take Rt. 95 north to Rt. 128/95 north. Take exit 15 (Rt. 1 east). Follow Rt. 1 east through several lights until you come to Washington St./Rt. 1A (with Alan Varteresian a Dunkin’ Donuts on the left). Bear right (as in a rotary) to turn left onto Washington St. Harris St. will be your In October 2010, NERS highlighted the textile collection of first left, with the gallery immediately on the right. longtime member Mae Festa. That evening with Mae evoked so much enthusiasm that our Collector Series was born. Parking: On both sides of the building, or in the public At our next meeting, on April 20, we will honor member lot just past the overpass. Alan Varteresian, lifelong Greater Bostonian and collector extraordinaire. Although he is known as a Turkmen specialist evolution as a collector, and some of his rugs. Many more because of the examples he has generously lent to various of Alan’s pieces—including a delectable assortment of exhibitions, Alan for decades has been a hunter-gatherer Turkmen, Southwest Persian, and Shahsavan soumak of all manner of pile and flatwoven gems. Furthermore, as bagfaces—will be on display for the audience to savor. Ever a member of an Armenian family whose ranks have included modest, Alan has pledged to “answer questions,” and we look at least two generations of dealers, he has a vast forward to hearing the comments of this gifted raconteur. knowledge of the commercial goings-on, past and present, We also thank another NERS member, Michael Grogan, in New England, New York, and beyond. for providing the setting—his gallery, Grogan & Company, Julia Bailey will talk about Alan’s family history, his in Dedham—for what promises to be a memorable evening. 1 May 20 Meeting: NERS Picnic, Moth Mart, and Show-and-Tell

The picnic will be held on Sunday, May 20—rain or shine—at Gore Place, the grounds of the former governor’s mansion in Waltham. We’ll have a huge enclosed tent with water and electricity, bathrooms in the adjacent barn, tables and chairs for all, and plenty of lawn space. Bring your own picnic lunch and we’ll provide soft drinks, coffee, and tea. Enjoy our moth mart: we invite NERS members (dealers or not) to offer a few things for sale during the picnic­—and buying is of course encouraged! Bring one or two items for our show-and-tell—mystery textiles or rugs, exotic specimens you think fellow members should know more about, or wonderful acquisitions you want to share.

Surveying the moth mart at lovely Gore Place, 2009.

Picnic Details

Date: Sunday, May 20 (note the day!) Time: Noon to 4 p.m. Place: Gore Place, 52 Gore Street, Waltham From the Mass Pike: Take exit 17 and follow signs to Rt. 20 westbound (Main St. in Watertown). After 1.5 miles, turn left onto Gore St. at the second of two adjoining traffic lights (Shell station on right). Proceed 0.2 miles on Gore St. Turn left (through center island) to Gore Place entrance. From Rte. 128: Take exit 26 onto Rt. 20 eastbound (it starts out as Weston Road and becomes Main Anatolian at the picnic show-and-tell, 2011. St.). After 3.3 miles turn right on Gore St. at the first of two adjoining traffic lights (Shell station on left). Proceed on Gore St. as above. From Newton: Go north on Crafts St. Turn right (at traffic light) on North St. Cross the Charles River and go straight. The street eventually becomes Gore St. Gore Place entrance will be on right. Parking: Use the parking area on the estate grounds.

Photo Credits

1, Julia Bailey. 2, Bob Alimi (above), Yon Bard (center and below). 3, Ann Nicholas. 4, Rich Blumenthal. 5, Courtesy Ersari chuval at the picnic show-and-tell, 2011. MFA. 6–7, Mark Hopkins. 8–9, Doug Bailey. 2 View from the Fringe In Tribute to Janet Smith, 1922–2012

It was with sadness that we learned of Janet Smith’s death on January 14. But as Janet herself said, it was time. As her son David recounted it, Janet was slipping downhill months before with congestive heart failure, at one point being hospitalized in what the family thought was the end. But it wasn’t. (I remember seeing her at a meeting after we’d learned of her crisis and being greeted by a warm grin and a hearty, “I’m back!”) But the condition returned and worsened, to the point where she finally couldn’t handle stairs and other exertions, a great frustration for a lady who had always led an active life. Her ninetieth birthday arrived and was feted by the family. Three days later she announced, “That’s it; I’m done.” She went to bed, fell asleep, and never woke up. What a perfect way to go. Janet Hunter Smith was one of those people you could always count on, and one who played a steady role in making the rug society what it is. For many years she took on the tedious tasks of getting the newsletter printed and distributed, and of managing our nametags. “All easy stuff for a retired librarian,” she would tell us. At one of our committee meetings it was lamented that visitors were attending our lectures without paying the guest fee. Janet said, “I’ll take care of it”— and did she ever. After every meeting she would sidle up to me with a conspiratorial smile and hand over a fistful of cash. Nothing got by Janet. She was a great lady, a good friend, and for so many years a mainstay of NERS. We will miss her. Mark Hopkins

Editor’s note: Because of Janet’s long association with the Goodnow Library in Sudbury, where she worked and remained a volunteer, NERS has donated to the library three books in her memory: Eiland’s Oriental Rugs: A Comprehensive Guide, Thompson’s Oriental , and one of the last remaining copies of our now out-of-print Through the Collector’s Eye: Oriental Rugs from New England Private Collections. Each Janet Smith with one of her rugs in 2010. For more volume will carry a bookplate dedicating it to Janet. about her life, see View from the Fringe, Oct. 2010.

Rug and Textile Events

Exhibitions Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto: Portable Mosques: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: of Colonial The Sacred Space of the , through Sept. 3. Boston: Domestic Embroideries, through June 3. The Textile Museum, Washington: Woven Treasures of Baltimore Museum of Art: Embroidered Treasures: Japan’s Tawaraya Workshop, through Aug. 12; Textiles from Central Asia, through May 13. Dragons, Nagas, and Creatures of the Deep, through De Young Museum, San Francisco: The Art of the Anatolian January 6, 2013. Kilim: Highlights from the Caroline and H. McCoy Jones Auctions featuring rugs Collection, through June 10. Rippon Boswell, Wiesbaden, May 19 (Collector Carpets) Seattle Asian Art Museum: Colors of the Oasis: Central Grogan, Dedham, May 20 (May Auction) Asian , through Aug. 5. View from the Fringe 3 February 10 Meeting Review: A Night at the MFA

and peonies or peaches (representing longevity) amid more complicated fretwork. The second carpet was perhaps slightly younger, dating to around 1800. It had a geometric shou character (another longevity symbol) in the center and dragon motifs featured in both field and border. Another border contained fretwork surrounding ancient motifs that we now label swastikas. This carpet had a predominantly tan-and-blue palette. The third carpet (shown at top right) dated to the eighteenth century, and used lions (wrongly called “fo dogs”), symbolizing courage and strength, as design elements. Peonies adorned the wider border, and pearls— light circles—appeared in the inner one. The final carpet, from the same era, had a pale field with an overall design Lauren Whitley discusses an 18th-century Chinese arrangement rather than the central motif of the other carpet on loan to the MFA from a private collection. three carpets. Peonies, lotus flowers, peach blossoms, and butterflies all embellished the field, with more peonies in the On February 10 the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was once main border. again the site for an NERS meeting, with Lauren Whitley, The last part of the evening program gave NERS curator in the department of Textile and Fashion Arts, members a chance to see some smaller carpets and hosting and leading the session. Fortunately, this year’s fragments in the MFA collection. These pieces are rarely outing lacked both the treacherous snowbound roads on display, but Lauren and former curator Julia Bailey had and the noisy First Friday crowd we encountered last year, them brought to the department offices for us to savor (see making for a more relaxing evening. below). Julia explained that an early focus of the MFA, like After a welcoming reception with refreshments in the many museums, was on classical carpets, and that the MFA Riley Seminar Room, the NERS group proceeded to the had benefited from the generosity of a number of donors, Upper Rotunda to take in four Chinese carpets on display. particularly the art theorist Denman Waldo Ross. Lauren opened with a few general remarks on Chinese Julia spoke first about a cartouche-shaped border carpet weaving, noting that some scholars say that it came fragment from one of the two Ardabil carpets, woven in from the west through Mongolia, arriving in China in the 1540. The Ardebil Carpet in the Victoria and Albert Museum thirteenth century. She commented that carpets were is world famous; less known is the fact that, at the end of used differently in China—they were highly prized and less the nineteenth century, parts of a twin carpet were used to frequently placed on floors than hung on walls or laid over restore it. (The “second Ardabil” is now in the Los Angeles tables. Finally, she observed that there was much more County Museum of Art.) A few border fragments not used in uniformity in Chinese carpet weaving than in that of many other areas. The design vocabulary was fairly well defined, with a set of motifs that appeared repeatedly in both carpets and other Chinese art forms. The palette was also less varied, with tans, blues, and browns usually being the main colors chosen. Chinese carpet structure was consistent, too, using cotton warps and asymmetrically knotted wool pile. Two of the four Chinese carpets on display were from the MFA collection, and two were on loan. The first example Lauren discussed (pictured above) dated to the eighteenth century; its field design featured a large-scale phoenix on rocks. It had two principal borders, one with simple fretwork and the other with images of bats (symbols of happiness) Julia Bailey shows fragments to NERS members. 4 View from the Fringe A Night at the MFA, cont. the restoration came onto the market at the time, and Ross acquired one and donated it to the MFA. The next object was a border fragment from a Persian silk medallion carpet, now lost. Two small fragments, also donated by Ross, came from the primary and secondary borders of a small Mughal Indian carpet of velvet-like fineness; woven on a silk foundation using extremely high- quality pashmina goat hair for the pile, it had a knot density of around 2,000 knots per inch. Now surviving only as fragments in a few museums, it was made circa 1630, likely for Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal. We next turned our attention to a so-called Transylvanian carpet. So named because many examples were donated to churches of the Transylvanian region in Romania, where they were displayed and preserved, these rugs were in fact produced in western . This example was woven in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century and remains in excellent condition, with great Chinese carpet with lions, 18th century, MFA 17.614. color. In the MFA, it had been forgotten in an attic for many years, and so received even less light exposure than it might Our next jewel, which came into the museum in 1908, otherwise have; it was rediscovered fairly recently. was a fragment from what must have been quite a large We next focused on a “vase carpet” fragment (named Salor chuval. The piece exhibited the very depressed warp for the vases in the ascending floral designs of some that characterizes such Turkmen weaving. Also on display examples, including this one). Julia explained that these was a velvet fragment, which entered the MFA much carpets, mostly dating to the seventeenth century, had been more recently, having been donated by Guido Goldman attributed to various parts of , but that the research after the MFA staged an exhibition of pieces from his ikat of May Beattie convincingly suggested a Kirman origin. This collection in 1997. A complete soumak mafrash, probably fragment, like other vase carpets, had a distinctive woven by the Shahsavan of the Moghan area in the third three-weft structure, with two wool wefts and one of cotton. quarter of the nineteenth century, featured a parade of The reason for this structural choice is unknown, but stylized peacocks among its geometric ornaments. The MFA over time, the cotton (or silk) wefts tended to deteriorate, acquired it in 1927. causing warps to surface and giving the pieces a somewhat A second vase carpet fragment from the museum corduroy-like appearance on the front. collection was likely earlier than the first, with a more curvilinear central field design and terrific, large-scale strapwork in the border. Julia mentioned that another substantial fragment of the same carpet is in the collection of the Louvre. The final piece of the night was a bold silk- on-cotton (opposite), probably made in the eighteenth century in the Caucasus or Northwest Iran; its design and colors are reminiscent of both dragon carpets and later rugs of the southern Caucasus. Like most of the other examples selected for the evening, its colors remain strong, despite its long life. NERS is most grateful for the hospitality of the MFA, and in particular for Lauren’s willingness to make even infrequently displayed items of the MFA’s outstanding collection viewable for our enjoyment: thanks, Lauren! Embroidery, Caucasus (?), 18th century, MFA 43.2046. Jim Adelson View from the Fringe 5 March 9 Meeting Review: Elena Tsareva on Eurasian Felts

In constructing felts, Elena noted that it was not possible to use vegetable fibers or the kemp of wild sheep, which lack the scales that cause the material to stay together after the felting process. Felts had to be created from domesticated sheep wool, silk, or camel hair; possibly the earliest felts were made from goat hair. The process of woolen felting is basically similar all over the world, with a particular set of steps. First is shearing, to get the raw material; then beating, to make it airier, softer, and cleaner. Then it is spread, watered, and rolled up, giving the fabric its distinctive character. Pattern is created via a number of different techniques, as outlined below. Finally, there tends to be more rolling, repeated as necessary to complete the work. Elena briefly outlined nine different methods, practiced by different cultures, of decorating felt: 1) rolled-in or rolled- over designs; 2) appliqué of decorative motifs, potentially of different materials, onto the felt foundation; 3) inlay or mosaic, with patterns cut from two differently colored panels and attached together to make two articles; 4–6) decoration with sewn-on cords, stitching, or embroidery; 7) decoration with other attached elements, such as shells, buttons, or ribbons; 8) painting (rare); and 9) printing (also rare). Elena then turned to the history of these techniques, noting that while there is 100,000-year-old evidence of Elena Tsareva discusses the history of felt making. sewing and thread, felt making is much more recent. As she had previously noted, felting implied the domestication of On March 9, at First Parish in Lincoln, NERS members sheep, which first occurred ten to eleven thousand years ago. enjoyed an extra meeting. Our presenter was Dr. Elena It also required very large quantities of wool: a complete yurt Tsareva, a respected scholar and prolific author traveling on cover, for example, needs the wool of 190 sheep. The a research and lecture tour from St. Petersburg, where she domestication of dogs and horses to manage the large flocks works at the Kunstkamera of the Russian Academy of would have occurred only five or six thousand years ago, Sciences. The topic of her talk was Eurasian felted textiles. or possibly later. Elena explained that her initial interest in felts came The earliest evidence of felting, from Mesopotamian from seeing examples that had been given to the Todaiji Sumeria, is provided by depictions of head coverings that, Temple in Nara, Japan, in AD 787. These felts, which had from their shape, had to be made of felt. The Hittite been presented to the temple by a Chinese empress, were civilization, to the northwest of Sumeria, used felts for both attributed to China, but the evidence for their place of headgear and footwear, including boots with turned-up toes; creation seemed unconvincing. The literature and felt fragments have been found in Hittite graves excavated scholarship on felts was in fact very limited, particularly by modern archaeologists. Similar early felts also survived in given their longtime existence, great numbers, and the Tarim Basin, where sand and extremely dry conditions importance. better preserved the remains, even of those over 4,000 years The initial use of felt, Elena explained, was for floor old. These “Sumer-Iranian” felts were characterized by coverings, but they have served many other functions: high-quality wool that was the basis for fine white felts with socks, for instance, were made from thin felt and clothing multicolored, rolled-in decoration. such as head covers from somewhat thicker felt. In addition European feltmaking started almost as early, with the to warmth, felts provide significant fire and water oldest examples from Germany, Holland, and Scandinavia— resistance—making them appealing for yurt covers or even also headgear, including helmet linings—dating back to the the exteriors of boats. second millennium BC. European felts, in contrast to the

6 View from the Fringe Elena Tsareva, cont.

Sumer-Iranian group, started with woven material, which was then subjected to the felting process. Further to the east, there was also a long-lived history of felt making among the peoples referred to as Scythians, who inhabited territory along the Great Steppe Corridor from China to the Balkans. Since this region included the Pazyryk area, Elena called this mode of felt making the “Pazyryk tradition.” The Scythians used felt for hats, caftans, socks, and even early umbrellas, as well as for decorative items such as horse masks. They created white felts—thin and dense in comparison with other types—and were the first to pattern them via the appliqué technique. Another distinct felting style came from a group inhabiting the steppes of northern Mongolia, referred to as Hsiung-nu, whose felts date back to between the first century BC and the first century AD. Hsiung-nu felts have thick foundations made of several layers, which are heavily stitched and covered with different textiles. The Hsiung-nu felts were often used in funerary contexts. The felting style of the Hsiung-nu has been carried forward by Kazakhs, and Tatars in the Volga Region continued this type of felting until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, even though others in the same area practiced the European style of felt making. After her introduction to these four major groups— Sumer-Iranian, European, Pazyryk, and Hsiung-nu—Elena gave briefer descriptions of felts from other areas, or from later production. She showed a decorative hanging from the Elena comments on one of Jeff Spurr’s Yomut felts, northern Caucasus that utilized a number of distinct motifs, a cloth-covered, non-functional trapping or hanging including sun, moon, and totemic figures. Structurally, this decorated with cording, appliqué, and tassels. piece was executed in Pazyryk style. The Lakhs made felt boots similar in appearance to earlier ones from the Hittites, practices didn’t support their preservation. and also made battle masks intended to scare enemies as Following her talk, Elena led a discussion of pieces well as protect their own faces. brought in by members. Jeff Spurr provided the majority An enormous variety of felts, including floor coverings, of items, including a Turkmen asmalyk, or wedding-camel hats, bags, and much more, come from the Kirghiz. By trapping; a cord-embellished Turkmen saddle cover; contrast, felts were used less in Iran, with hats being the a white-ground Yomut bokhcha, or envelope-like container, primary felted objects. In the southern Caucasus, felt decorated with embroidery, appliqué, and cording as well clothing was more common, particularly for shepherds. as attached tassels; and a non-functional Yomut trapping Anatolia, like Iran, tended to reserve felt for headgear, in (shown above). Among Kirghiz pieces brought by various particular the tall hats worn by dervishes and the royal members was a dish cover or bag with thread decoration, family. Felt production extended throughout North Africa a large inlaid hanging, and a smaller inlaid piece of modern and all the way to Spain. In Europe, felt-making traditions manufacture. Elena and Jeff attributed another felt, which continued in certain clothing; Elena showed examples from featured a pair of decorative triangular panels, to nearby Byelorussia, Ukraine, and the Baltic territories. Kungrat peoples. Much less is known about felting in some other regions: Many thanks to Elena Tsareva for fitting this no ancient felts survive from Samarkand or the Turkmen presentation into her travel schedule, and for enlightening areas, for instance, but this may indicate not that felts us on an old but relatively unfamiliar form of textile art. weren’t made there, but rather that local conditions and Jim Adelson

View from the Fringe 7 March 23 Meeting Review: Peter Poullada on the Lebab Turkmen

On March 23, Peter Poullada presented “The Lebab taken from Vinnikov, showing the top twenty-five tribes Turkmen and Their Interactions with the Local Uzbeks” at in the Lebab, according to the census, but he cautioned ALMA, marking his return as an NERS speaker. He started that the lives and weavings of these Lebab Turkmen were by explaining that “Lebab” is the name of a province on considerably different from those of their fellow tribesmen both sides of the Amu Darya, or Oxus, River, in what is living elsewhere; he illustrated some of these differences now eastern Turkmenistan. Many different ethnic groups, with historical accounts and photographs taken from the including Uzbek and Turkmen tribes, inhabit this Middle Amu 1880s onward. Darya region and live in relative proximity to one another; Showing a photo of the fortress at Chardjui (now known local history from Bukhara and Khiva indicates, for instance, as Turkmenabat), he described how the local ruler, or beg, that the Uzbeks and Turkmen have lived there together for had both Uzbek and Turkmen troops. The Turkmen provided 250 years. military support in return for land and water access, which Peter used the term “Lebab Turkmen” with reference enabled them to live a semi-settled and agriculturally based to the different peoples of Turkmen origin in the region, life, in contrast to their fellow tribesmen elsewhere. Another including contingents from many of the known Turkmen photo showed Salors on a boat on the Amu Darya; Peter tribes, including Ersari, Salor, Yomud, Arabatchi, Chodor, commented that we don’t normally think of Turkmen on and others. Among sources indicating the ethnic makeup water, but that in this area some of the Salors fished and of the area at different times is a particularly detailed also provided ferry transport on the river. census compiled by the Russians in 1926, which Vinnikov While the lives and economy of the Lebab Turkmen expounded upon in 1958. Peter distributed a handout, were different from those of other Turkmen, their weaving remained important to them, although much of it was done for commercial purposes rather than for use within the family. One of his photographs showed the beg at Chardjui with a group of his courtiers, sitting on an enormous carpet with a standard design we would label “Beshir.” By the late nineteenth century, carpets were purchased for and used in many homes, not just those of leaders. Another photo pictured a family in Margilan (in modern-day eastern Uzbekistan) on a large carpet with a mina khani design. Another photograph, of a Jewish family in Bukhara, featured carpets, including a classic Kizil Ayak main carpet, on both the walls and the floor. Many of the weaving styles and practices of the Lebab Turkmen, Peter pointed out, differed from those of Turkmen further west and south. Yellow was used much more extensively, for instance, which he surmised was the result of exposure to Uzbek taste. In addition, a number of Lebab Turkmen weavings were based on Persianate models and as a result were completely covered in decorative pattern, rather than preserving the prominent open space associated with Turkmen weavings from other regions. As the final portion of his prepared remarks, Peter presented and commented on a number of pile weavings that he believes to have come from the Lebab region. Rather than arrange them by tribal origin, he tended to group them by design type and format. He started with several main carpets, the first of which he attributed to Saltiq Ersari, with gulli medallions in the central field and the general Peter Poullada answers questions after his talk. design aesthetic of Turkmen main carpets outside the 8 View from the Fringe Peter Poullada, cont.

Lebab. A Kizil Ayak main carpet also displayed the design which he dated to the 1860s or 70s. Another chuval had characteristics of other Turkmen weaving. A third main a design often conjectured to have derived from ikat; he carpet also featured gulli guls and would typically be labeled reiterated the possibility that the design had instead moved Turkmen, but Peter felt it could have been made by an from pile to ikat, or that ikat and pile versions of it had Uzbek weaver in the Lebab area. He noted that the design a common predecessor. Next, he dated a trapping with of a so-called cloudband Beshir, in contrast, might originally a Persianate Herati central motif to the second half of the have been Chinese, and that in any case the complete nineteenth century. Of items with gul designs, one was and dense covering of the field differed markedly from the a nine-gul chuval with very creatively drawn and colored usual Turkmen aesthetic of discrete guls floating over the chemche minor guls and large amounts of light green background in the central field. throughout. Peter felt that it was most likely Ersari, but that He also showed multiple ensis, the first with a design an Arabatchi origin was possible. Another chuval followed, typically attributed to the Ersari, and subsequent examples with a twelve-gul design commonly used in both Ersari that likely would also be labeled Ersari, but that Peter felt and Saryk weaving and the whites knotted in cotton; Peter showed Uzbek influence. He then turned to chuvals, torbas, considered a Saryk provenance more likely. Then came and trappings. Some had designs usually said to be derived a pair of pieces—one in the form of an ok bash, or tent-pole from ikats, but Peter cautioned that certain ikat patterns cover, the other a small bag, both thought to be Ersari. The themselves might have come from earlier carpets, or that two articles had actually been made from a single larger such designs in both ikat and pile might have descended pile weaving, cut up and reassembled. No one could identify from a common ancestor. He also explored two other Lebab the format of the original from the pieces that remained; design types, both of them not found on Turkmen weaving Peter thought it might have been Kirghiz rather than Ersari. from other areas: a banded design used on chuvals and He labeled the final piece a kejebelik, or wedding-camel sometimes torbas, and the mina khani pattern, which is trapping; it had a design apparently taken from an earlier hypothesized to have originated in Iran. Salor model. Following Peter’s presentation, he took several Our thanks to Peter for broadening our understanding questions from the audience. The first concerned how the of tribal life and weaving in the Middle Amu Darya region, people in the region identified themselves. Peter replied and for using so many arresting historical and even family that this differed at different times; in response to the photos to illustrate his points. Our thanks as well to ALMA 1926 census, for example, there was motivation to claim for hosting the meeting and for inviting its members, who membership in a particular tribe in order to receive better joined the audience and enlivened the discussion. treatment. He also noted that some tribal groups had Jim Adelson migrated to Afghanistan before coming to the Lebab, and that these multiple movements would have muted their connection with their original tribes. Another attendee asked about the term “Beshir,” and Peter explained that Beshir is the name of a place—in fact, a relatively small town—making it an unlikely marketing center, much less weaving site, for all the rugs given the name. Finally, Peter was asked about the degree of Russian appreciation for weavings of the region; he responded that the Russians were more focused on Western Turkmen and their carpets, and that the Lebab and Bukhara areas, while part of Russia, were semi-independent. The evening concluded with a show-and-tell of pieces belonging to NERS members. One (pictured at right) was a chuval with a full medallion and half medallions in the main field: Peter felt it was from the first half of the nineteenth century, and probably came from around Kerki, in easternmost Turkmenistan. Another was a chuval with a zigzag design, of a type usually attributed to the Ersari, Lebab chuval, Kerki (?), first half of the 19th century. View from the Fringe 9 Contributors to this issue: Julia Bailey (editor), Jim Adelson, Doug Bailey, Yon Bard, Rich Blumenthal, The New England Rug Society is an informal, Mark Hopkins, Ann Nicholas. Distributor: Jim Sampson. non-profit organization of people interested in enriching their knowledge and appreciation NERS 2011–12 Steering Committee: Jim Adelson, of antique oriental rugs and textiles. Our meetings Robert Alimi, Julia Bailey (co-chair), Yon Bard, are held seven or more times a year. Membership Louise Dohanian, Joel Greifinger, Mark Hopkins, levels and annual dues are: Single $45, Couple $65, Lloyd Kannenberg, Ann Nicholas (co-chair), Supporting $90, Patron $120, Student $25. Jim Sampson, Jeff Spurr. Membership information and renewal forms are available on our website, www.ne-rugsociety.org.; by writing to the New England Rug Society, P.O. Box 290393, Charlestown, MA 02129; or by contacting Jim Sampson at [email protected].

The New England Rug Society P.O. Box 290393 Charlestown, MA 02129

In this issue: April 20 Meeting Preview 1 May 20 Picnic Preview 2 Photo Credits 2 In Tribute to Janet Smith 3 Rug and Texile Events 3 February 10 Meeting Review 4–5 March 9 Meeting Review 6–7 March 23 Meeting Review 8–9